Job 24 15. &c. their particular eftate, chaftely, temperately, juftly and religiously. The Evil Confequents of uncleanness. The bleffings and proper effects of Chastity we fhall beft understand by reckoning the evils of uncleanness and carnality. 1. Uncleannefs of all vices is the moft fhameful. The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, faying, No eye fhall fee me, and difguifeth his face. In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themfelves in the day-time; they know not the light: for the morning is to thew as the shadow of death. He is Swift as the waters; their portion is curfed in the earth, μα záз he beholdeth not the way of the vineyards. Shame is the eldest daughter of uncleannefs. 2. The appetites of uncleannefs are full of cares and trouble, and its fruition is forrow and repentance. Hof 2.6. The way of the adulterer is hedged with thorns: full of Appetitus fears, and jealoufies, burning defires and impatient anxietas eft, waitings, tedioufnefs of delay, and sufferance of affanelas verò fronts, and amazements of discovery. fornicationis pœnitentia S. Hieron. 3. Moft of its kinds are of that condition, that they involve the ruine of two fouls; and he that is a fornicator or adulterous, fteals the four as well as dithonours the body of his neighbour: aud fo it becomes like the fin of falling Lucifer, who brought a part of the stars with his tail from heaven. 4. Of all carnal fins it is that alone which the Devil takes delight to imitate and counterfeit: communicating with Witches and impure perfons in the corporal act but in this only. 12 5. Uncleannefs with all its kinds is a vice which 1 Cor. 6. 18. hath a profeffed enmity against the body. Every fin which a man doth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication finneth against his own body. 6. Uncleannefs is hugely contrary to the fpirit of ! Government by embafing the fpirit of a man, making ic effeminate, fifcaking, foft and foolith. without cou rage, rage, without confidence. David felt this after his folly with Bathsheba, he fell to unkingly arts and ftratagems to hide the crime; and he did nothing but increase it, and remained timorous and poor-fpirited, till he prayed to God once more to eftablith him with a free and a Princely Spirit. And no fuperiour dare Spiritu priaftrictly obferve difcipline upon his charge, if he hath cipali me let himself loofe to the thame of incontinence. confirma, Pf. S. 7. The Gospel hath added two arguments against uncleannefs which were never before used, nor indeed could be: fince God hath given the holy Spirit to them that are baptized, and rightly confirmed, and entred into covenant with him, our bodies are made Temples of the Holy Ghoft in which he dwells; and therefore uncleannefs is Sacrilege, and defiles a Temple, It is S. Paul's argument [Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?] and [He that defiles a 1 Cor. 6. 19. temple, him will God deftroy.] Therefore glorifie God in your bodies, that is, flee fornication. To which for the likeness of the argument add, that our bodies are mem- 1 Cor. 3. 17. bers of Chrift, and therefore God forbid that we should take the members of Chrift and make them members of a barlot. So that uncleannefs difhonours Chrift, and difhonours the Holy Spirit: it is a fin against God, and in this fence a fin against the Holy Ghoft. 8. The next fpécial argument which the Gofpel minifters especially against adultery, and for the prefervation of the purity of marriage, is that [Marriage is by Chrift hallowed into a mystery to fig- Ephef, s. 32. nifie the Sacramental and myftical union of Chrift and his Church.] He therefore that breaks this knot which the Church and their mutual faith hath tied, and Chrift hath knit up into a mystery, dishonours a great rite of Chriftianity, of high, fpiritual and excellent fignification. 9. St. Gregory reckons uncleannefs to be the parent Moral, of these monsters, blindness of mind, inconfideration, precipitancy or giddiness in action, felf-love, hatred of God, love of the prefent pleasures, a dispite or defpair of the joys of Religon here, and of Heaven hereafter. Whereas a pure mind in a chaste body is the mother of wifdom and deliberation, fober counfels and ingenious actions, open deportment and fweet carriage, fincere principles and unprejudicate understanding, love of God and felf-denial, peace and confidence, holy prayers and spiritual comfort, and a pleasure of Spirit infinitely greater than the S. Cyprian de fottish and beaftly pleasures of unchastity. For to bono pudi- overcome pleasure is the greatest pleasure, and no victory is greater than that which is gotten over our lufts and filthy inclinations. citiæ. 10. Add to all these, the publick dishonesty and difreputation that all the nations of the world have caft upon adulterous and unhallowed embraces. Abimelech to the men of Gerar made it death to meddle with the wife of Isaac: and Judah condemned Thamar to be burnt for her adulterous conception: and God, befides the Law made to put the adulterous per fon to death, did conftitute a settled and conftant miNum. s. 14. racle to difcover the adultery of a fu'pected woman, that her bowels fhould burft with drinking the waters of Jealoufie. The Egyptian Law was to cut off the nofe of the adulterefs, and the offending part of the adulterer. The Locrians put out both the adulterer's eyes. The Germans (as Tacitus reports) placed the adulterefs amidst her kindred naked, and shaved her head, and caufed her husband to beat her with Clubs through the City. The Gortynaans crowned the man with wool, to fhame him for his effeminacy; and the Cumani caufed the woman to ride upon an Afs naked and hooted at, and for ever after called her by an ap Obr. pellative of Sorn, [A Rider upon an Afs.] All nations barbarous and civil agreeing in their general defign of rooting fo dishonest and fhameful a vice from unConcil. Au der heaven. Concil. Tribur.c. 49. I. tel. 1. fub. Clodovio. * The middle ages of the Church were not pleased † Cod. de a- that the adulterefs fhould be put to death; but in the dulteriis ad primitive ages the † civil Laws, by which Christians Jegem Juli. ,L& were then governed, gave leave to the wronged hufCod. Theod, band to kill his adulterefs wife, if he took her in the de adulte fact: but because it was a privilege indulged to men, riis, c. pla. rather than a direct detestation of the crime, a confi deration deration of the injury rather than of the uncleanness, therefore it was foon altered, but yet hath caufed an enquiry, Whether is worse, the adultery of the man or the woman. conjug. præ серс. The refolution of which cafe in order to our prefent affair, is thus : In respect of the perfon, the fault is greater in a man than a woman, who is of a more pliant and eafie fpirit, and weaker understanding, and hath nothing to fupply the unequal Strength of men, but the defenfative of a paffive nature and armour of moApud Aug. defty, which is the natural ornament of that fex. And de adulter. it is unjust that the man should demand chastity and fe- conjug. Plas: verity from his Wife, which himself will not obferve towards her, faid the good Emperour Antoninus: It is as if the man fhould perfuade his wife to fight against thofe enemies to which he had yielded himself a prifoner. 2. In respect of the effects and evil confequents, the adultery of the woman is worse, as bringing baftardy into a family,and difinherifons, or great injuries to the lawful children, and infinite violations of peace, and murthers, and divorces, and all the effects of rage and madnefs. 3. But in respect of the Crime, and as relating to God, they are equal, intolerable and damnable and fince it is no more permitted to men to : have many wives, than to women to have many hufbands, and that in this refpect their privilege is equal, there fin is fo too. And this is the cafe of the queftion in Chriftianity. And the Church anciently refused to admit fuch perfons to the holy Communion, until they had done seven years Penances in fafting, in fackcloth,in fevere inflictions and inftruments of chastity and forrow, according to the Discipline of thofe Ages. Acts of Chastity in general. The Acts and proper Offices of the Grace of Chaftity in general, are thefe: 1. To refift all unchafte thoughts: at no hand entertaining pleasure in the unfruitful fancies and remembrances F 4 brances of uncleannefs, although no definite defire or refolution be entertained. 2. At no hand to entertain any defire, or any phantaftick, imaginative loves, though by fhame, or disability, or other circumftance, they be restrained from act. Caffo faltem delectamine amare quod potiri non licet. Poeta Patellas luxuria oculos, dixit Ind rus. Καληφόρας ανθρώπων. alius quidam. 3. To have a chafte eye and a hand; for it is all one with what part of the body we commit adultery: and if a man lets his eye loofe, and enjoys the luft of that, he is an adulterer. Look not upon a woman to luft after her. And fuppofing all the other members reftrained, yet if the eye be permitted to luft, the man can no otherwise be called chafte, than he can be called fevere and mortified, that fits all day long feeing plays and revellings, and out of greedinefs to fill his eye, neglects his belly. There are fome veffels which if you offer to lift by the belly or bottom, you cannot ftir them, but are foon removed if you take them by the ears. It matters not with which of your members you are taken and carried off from your duty and severity. Time videre unde poffis cadere, & poli fieri pervertà fimplicitate fecurus. $. Aug. 4. To have a heart and mind chaste and pure; that is, detefting all uncleannefs, difliking all its motions, past actions, circumftances, likeneffes, difcourfes: and this ought to be the chastity of Virgins and Widows, of old perfons and Eunuchs efpecially, and generally of all men, according to their feveral neceffities. 5. To difcourfe chately and purely; with great care declining all undecencies of language, chaftening the tongue, and reftraining it with grace, as vapours of Sp. Minut wine are reftrained with a bunch of myrrh. us Pontifex Pofhumium caftimoniam 6. To difapprove by an after act all involuntary and monuit ne natural pollutions; for if a man delights in having werbis vitae fuffered any natural pollution, and with pleasure repon quan members it, he chufes that which was in it felf intibus utere voluntary; and that which being natural was inno cap. ex inima. Cent, becoming voluntary is made finful. tur. Plut. de |